Sister полностью

I finally understand yours and Mum’s passion for gardening. It is seasonally miraculous. All that health and growth and new life and renewal. No wonder politicians and religions hijack green shoots and imagery of spring for themselves. This evening I, too, exploit the image for my own ends and allow myself to hope that death may not be final after all, that somewhere, as in Leo’s beloved Narnia books, there is a heaven where the white witch is dead and the statues have life breathed back into them. Tonight it doesn’t seem quite so inconceivable.

9

friday

Although late, I am walking slowly to the CPS offices. There are three things that I find particularly hard in the telling of this story. I’ve done the first, finding your body, and what’s coming up is next. It sounds trivial, a bill, that’s all, but its effect was devastating. As I dawdle, I hear Mum’s voice telling me that it’s already ten to nine, we’re going to be late, Come on, Beatrice. Then you whiz past on your bike, book bag looped over a handlebar, eyes exhilarated, with pedestrians smiling at you as you whirred past them, literally creating a breath of fresh air. We haven’t got all day, Beatrice. But you knew that we had and were seizing it moment by moment.

I reach Mr. Wright’s office, and not commenting on my late arrival, he hands me a Styrofoam cup of coffee, which he must have bought from the dispenser by the lift. I am grateful for his thoughtfulness, and know that a tiny part of my reluctance to tell him the next episode in the story is because I don’t want him to think badly of me.

Todd and I sat at your Formica table, a pile of your post in front of us. I found the task of sorting out your paperwork oddly soothing. I’ve always made lists, and your pile of post represented an easily achievable line of ticks. We started with the red urgent reminders, then worked our way down to the less urgent bills. Like me, Todd is adept at the bureaucracy of life, and as we worked companionably together, I felt connected to him for the first time since he’d arrived in London. I remembered why we were together and how the small everyday things formed a bridge between us. It was a quotidian relationship based on practical details rather than passion, but I still valued its small-scale connections. Todd went to talk to Amias about the “tenancy agreement” despite my saying that I doubted there was such a thing. He pointed out, sensibly I thought, that we wouldn’t know unless we asked him.

The door closed behind him and I opened the next bill. I was feeling the most relaxed since you’d died. I could almost imagine making a cup of coffee as I worked, switching on Radio 4. I had a flicker of normality and in that brief moment could envisage a time without bereavement.

“I got out my credit card to pay her phone bill. Since she’d lost her mobile, I’d paid the landline one every month. It was my birthday present to her and she said it was too generous, but it was for my benefit too.”

I told you I wanted to make sure that you could phone me, and talk to me as long as you wanted to without worrying about the bill. What I didn’t tell you is that I needed to make sure that if I wanted to ring you, your phone wouldn’t have been disconnected.

“This bill was larger than in previous months. It was itemized so I decided to check it.” My words are slower, dawdling. “I saw that she’d phoned my mobile on the twenty-first of January. The call was at one p.m. her time, eight a.m. New York time, so I would have been in the subway getting to work. I don’t know why there were even a few seconds of connection.” I must do this all in one go, no pausing, or I won’t be able to start again. “It was the day she had Xavier. She must have phoned me when she went into labor.”

I break off for just a moment, not looking at Mr. Wright’s face, then continue, “Her next call to me was at nine p.m. her time, four p.m. New York time.”

“Eight hours later. Why do you think there was such a long gap?”

“She didn’t have a mobile, so once she left her flat to go to the hospital, it would have been hard for her to ring me. Besides, it wouldn’t have been urgent. I mean, I wouldn’t have had time to get to her and be with her for the birth.”

My voice becomes so quiet that Mr. Wright has to bend toward me to hear.

“The second call must have been when she got home from the hospital. She was ringing me to tell me about Xavier. The call lasted twelve minutes and twenty seconds.”

“What did she say?” he asks.

My mouth is suddenly dry. I don’t have the saliva needed to talk. I take a sip of cold coffee, but my mouth still feels parched.

“I didn’t talk to her.”

“You were probably out of the office, darling. Or stuck in a meeting,” said Todd. He’d come back from Amias’s, full of incredulity about your paying your rent in paintings, to find me sobbing.

“No, I was there.”